


A Week Away

by inkyreveries



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Sex, Child Abuse, Explicit Language, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:33:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyreveries/pseuds/inkyreveries
Summary: Steve goes on vacation for Spring Break. Billy has a realization.





	A Week Away

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt by flippyspoon.

March, 1985 

“A _family trip?_ ”

Steve tells him late one night when his parents aren’t home, murmuring sleepily into the curve of his collarbone. Billy knows he reacts louder than Steve intended because the other boy looks up at him, bleary-eyed and confused.

“Yeah, for spring break. They randomly decided they want to go to Florida or some shit to see my grandparents. I’m only going to go until next Sunday though, they’ll probably stay a while longer.” Steve says it so casually that Billy feels like an idiot for being disappointed.

Truth be told, the idea of even spending a night apart from Steve makes Billy feel tense. Something about the school year coming to an end makes him much too aware of the fact that he and Harrington are just a thing of convenience, a weird combination of location and circumstance that resulted in, well, whatever they are.

Billy wonders when he turned into such a pussy.

It’s like Steve can read his mind because he presses his lips into Billy’s neck and says, “hey, it’s just a week. You won’t even have time to miss me.” And Steve’s voice is so soothing and so gentle it makes Billy want to slam his fist into the wall because Steve _knows_ how badly he wants him to stay (which is pretty fucking badly) and he can’t think about what that means—about them, about _him_ —so he pushes Steve off him and rolls out of bed. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Harrington. I could give a shit. I’m just going to miss fucking your pretty little mouth.” It comes out so harsh and he can see the surprise and hurt flash across Steve’s face (because they had been _working_ on this, on Billy not lashing out when he feels vulnerable) but he’s just so—

He doesn’t know what he is.

“Billy.” Steve reaches a hand out to him, eyes pleading. Billy knows then that he could crawl back under the covers and apologize and Steve would forgive him because Steve always forgives him (in the back of his mind, Billy knows this means something) but he feels suffocated by some dawning realization he can’t handle so instead he grabs his clothes and leaves Steve empty-handed, not bothering to get dressed until he’s fumbling with his buttons behind the wheel of his Camaro.

*** 

Steve leaves two days later and Billy knows he should have gone over to make things right but he has this nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that keeps him away.

The first day of break passes by agonizingly slowly, and Billy can already tell it’s going to be a long fucking week.

He tells himself it has nothing to do with Steve being gone, that it’s being stuck looking after Max all day that has him on edge but deep down he knows that’s not it (because really things have been kind of okay between him and Max lately; something about her almost castrating him made it feel like they were on equal ground).

***

On the second day, it occurs to Billy that he has legitimately no friends except for Steve. That stupid voice in the back of his mind snorts at the description of Steve as a “friend.”

Billy ignores it. 

He realizes he has no friends when he tries to make a plan for the day but there is no one he actually wants to hang out with.

_Except for Steve._

Tommy and the other assholes who flock around Billy at school are intolerable on the best of days, when all he wants to do is march over to the lunchroom table where Steve always sits with Nancy and Jonathan and plop himself down. They’re marginally better at parties when they chant Billy’s name as they hold him over the keg and he can feel Steve looking at him like _he’s_ the King and he knows that later he’ll be spilling down Steve’s throat.

Turns out he only likes being around those asswipes when it helps him get laid. 

He gets so restless that he actually finds himself marching over to Max’s door but when he raises a hand to knock he loses his nerve and stomps back to his own room, slamming the door behind him.

***

On the third day, Billy decides that the reason he’s so on edge is because he hasn’t gotten off in five days so he waits until his dad and Susan have left for work and Max is at the Wheeler’s to undress himself and splay out on his bed, gripping his slick cock in his fist.

At first, he entertains himself with a playback of Steve’s pouty lips wrapped around his dick, drooling and gagging and tearing up but fucking _loving_ it. (Steve sucks dick like a goddamn porn star). When he thinks about the first time he took Steve, his cock twitches violently in his hand and he strokes faster, _remembering_.

Remembering the whine tearing its way out of Steve’s throat as he rocked back against Billy’s lubed up fingers.

Remembering Steve’s eyes widen when he flipped him onto his back and pushed into him, burying himself up to the hilt.

Remembering the _sound_ of it, the slapping of their bodies coming together, Steve’s desperate sighs, whimpering when Billy called him princess and groaning when he grasped his aching cock in his hand.

Remembering Steve’s fingers yanking on his curls, pulling him close so he could sigh, “ _yes_ , baby” into Billy’s mouth. Steve gazing up at Billy from beneath impossibly long eyelashes, cumming so hard it brings tears to his eyes. Steve looking at Billy like he’s an angel, like he matters, like he _loves him_.

And then Billy’s cumming all over himself, cumming so hard the sheer force of it rips a guttural sound from his throat he doesn’t recognize.

When it’s over, he feels so hollow he aches. Because he just jerked off to Steve’s stupid fucking moon eyes and not just them fucking but them making _love_ and he can’t pretend he doesn’t know what this means; he knows exactly what this means. 

This freaks him out so badly he smokes an entire pack before his hands stop shaking.

***

On the fourth day, he hears a tentative knock at his bedroom door.

“Yeah, Max?”

She opens the door and peeks her head in, taking in the cigarette butts and crumpled beer cans littering the floor.

Max shoots him a long, unreadable look.

“ _What_?” He asks defensively.

She just rolls her eyes. “Can you drive me to the arcade?”

The whole ride there, Max fixes him with that same infuriating look and he turns the music up so loud it hurts because she always complains when he does that and maybe that will make her stop _looking at him like that_ but she won’t so he punches the music off and pulls over.

“ _Why_ are you looking at me like that?” he demands.

“Like what?” She answers, feigning innocence.

Billy huffs exasperatedly and glares at her until she gives in.

“Billy, I know about you and Steve.”

Billy thinks he’s going to vomit. 

“What the fuck are you playing at, Max, huh? You gonna blab to all your nerd friends now?” He tries to sneer at her but he can hear his voice trembling.

Billy can basically see Max try not to roll her eyes, and Billy knows he doesn’t scare her anymore (he hasn’t really for a long time). “Calm down, Billy, Jesus. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

His fists unclench and he starts to breathe normally again.

“I’m not an idiot,” she continues, “your room is _right_ next to mine. I can hear when you sneak out, and you and Steve are _always_ 20 minutes early to AV club, and it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that you stopped being such a huge asshole pretty soon after I saw you guys ‘just listening to music’ in the Camaro that one time.” 

“I need a cigarette.” Billy mutters, rolling down the window and hastily shoving one in between his lips. He takes a long, thoughtful drag and then turns to face Max.

“Okay, fine, so you know about me and Steve. What’s your point?” He tries to sound casual, like he doesn’t care that his thirteen-year-old stepsister knows he’s fucking Steve Harrington, but he most _definitely_ cares and they both know it. 

Max shrugs. “I don’t have a point. You’ve just been acting like a total weirdo since Steve went out of town and I don’t want you to fuck it up with him because I like Steve and it would be bad for the Party.” 

Billy can tell Max is finished because she crosses her arms matter-of-factly and he ruffles her hair in this almost fond way they’ve established between them and says “okay, Max. I hear ya.”

But when he starts driving again he feels the knot in his stomach come back because Max _told_ him not to fuck it up and Steve’s face flashes in his mind, shocked and wounded as he left him in bed, hand outstretched in midair. 

Maybe he’d already fucked it up.

***

On the fifth day, all Billy can think about is how Max knowing about them makes it feel so much more real than it did when it was just their secret. His revelation from his third day jerk-off session creeps back up on him and he feels panic rising in his throat like bile and he doesn’t know what to do—so Billy decides to get fantastically wasted instead.

He ends up at Lisa Turner’s house chugging beers with Tommy. Tommy is prattling on about some stupid football team drama, Lisa is pressing her tits up against Billy’s chest, giggling about how drunk she is, and Billy just keeps absentmindedly scanning the room for Steve before remembering he’s not there.

He is definitely not drunk enough yet. 

Billy remembers a time when he lived for nights like these, when he took pride in being on top.  It made him feel big—made him feel important.

And then Steve came along with his floppy fucking hair and concerned fucking eyes and did things to Billy’s heart that made him feel bigger and more important than anything ever had before. And Billy time and time again took Steve’s concern and his patience and his _love_ and threw it back in his face. Because that’s just what Billy did.

Because people like Billy Hargrove don’t end up with people like Steve Harrington.

People like Billy end up alone.

Billy crumples his empty beer can in his fist, throwing it to the side.

“Fuck this. I need some whiskey.”

 ***

On the sixth day, Billy wakes up in a small puddle of vomit on the living room floor, Tommy sprawled on the couch a few feet away. After a few groggy blinks, everything gradually comes back into focus and Billy is so hungover he can feel it in his entire body. He drops a couple of napkins on the spot where he puked, splashes some water on his face and then staggers out to his car, feeling worse about everything than he had the day before.

Getting wasted last night was not one of Billy’s better ideas.

He comes home to an empty house and jumps in the shower, scrubbing off the puke and the sweat and turning the water so hot he can’t concentrate on anything else but it burning against his skin.

_Because Steve is coming home tomorrow_.

Billy doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to think about anything but collapsing into bed and sleeping all of it away.  

So he does.

“Billy, dinner’s ready!” Susan calls from the kitchen and Billy wakes up with a groan. He knows he has roughly 30 seconds to be at the kitchen table before his dad barges in and things get ugly so he drags himself out of his room, feeling just as on edge as he did when he woke up.

Hargrove-Mayfield dinners are reliably tense, but Billy hasn’t felt this agitated in a long time. The minute he enters the kitchen, he knows it’s going to be a particularly unpleasant one because his father is already glowering at him from the head of the table. 

“What did you do today, Billy?” His voice is mean and quiet. 

Billy shrugs and sits down, scooping some beef stroganoff onto his plate. “Homework, mostly.” 

Neil sneers at him, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork. “Huh, that’s strange, because we’ve been here for the past six hours and you’ve been asleep.”

Susan looks entreatingly at Neil and Max suddenly becomes very focused on her food, because they all know what’s coming.

“Dad, I was tired.” Billy protests, hating his father for doing this here, now, in front of _Max,_ for Christ’s sake.

Neil slams his fist on the table and everyone jumps.

“Tired from what? From _what_ , Billy? Smoking cigarettes all day and jacking off to your own reflection? Is that what it is?” Neil’s voice is steadily increasing in volume and Billy is caught somewhere between shame and humiliation and he’s been wound so fucking tightly all week and he _hates_ his dad so much and it’s so much more bearable when Steve’s around but he’s not it’s just Billy and something in him _snaps_.

“Would you ever just _fuck off_ and leave me alone?” he shouts, chest heaving with fury and loss and every other goddamn emotion that is demanding to be felt.

At first, it’s like time slows down. Susan and Max turn to Billy, astonished and terrified, while Neil’s lips press together so tightly they almost disappear. His eyes harden, his jaws clench, and he pushes his chair back from the table.

Then time speeds up again and Neil is yanking Billy out of his chair, landing blow after blow to his face. Blood is filling Billy’s mouth and streaming into his eyes and it isn’t until Susan finds her voice and screams “Neil, _stop!_ ” that he does.

“You think you can talk to me like that?” Neil hisses through gritted teeth, hands twisted in the collar of Billy’s shirt like he wants to strangle him. He lets Billy’s head drop back against the floor and stands over him, looming. “I am your _father._ Don’t you dare raise your voice to me ever again.” He punctuates his sentence with a swift kick to Billy’s stomach that leaves him gasping.

“Now get up and apologize to Susan and Max for ruining dinner.”

Billy pushes himself shakily off the floor, wiping the blood out of his eyes. Susan is staring at him with horror and Max is crying into her dinner and Billy feels like the ground has opened up beneath him and he’s falling, falling, falling.

“I’m sorry” he croaks out, because it’s the best he can do and then he leaves, shrugging on a jacket and slamming the door behind him.

Billy keeps a bloody rag in the backseat of his car because sometimes when his dad beats the shit out of him he likes to drive as far away as he can before something compels him to turn back. He used to be pulled back by a lack of money or life experience or gas, but then it was just the promise of Steve, reeling him in like a fucking life preserver. 

He presses the bloody rag to the cut on his eyebrow, trying to stem the bleeding so he can see clearly while he drives, but it won’t fucking stop bleeding and everything is rising in his chest again and Billy violently yanks the wheel over to the shoulder of the road because it’s all just too much and he can’t fucking _breathe_.

Billy punches the dashboard once, twice, and then he’s sobbing into his fist because it’s like everything he spent years trying to ignore is overflowing all at once and it’s all because of Steve fucking Harrington.

***

On the seventh day, Billy wakes up in his car on the side of the road. He prods gingerly at the swelling of his eyebrow and then swallows dryly, the coppery tang of blood lingering on his tongue.

_Steve is coming back today_.

Billy needs a cup of coffee.

It’s still relatively early, so not many people are there to gawk at him when he strolls into the diner and plops himself down in a booth, ordering a cup of coffee and a plateful of pancakes. The waitress doesn’t say anything, because he’s been there enough times looking like that, she just silently refills his coffee whenever it gets low and Billy thinks he has never been more grateful for another human being.

He sits there for a while after he’s finished eating, nursing his coffee cup and scowling at people who do a double take when they see him. He knows he looks like hell, his face and shirt stained with blood, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to sit for a few more minutes before he has to go where he’s going next.

Finally, he gets up, giving the waitress an appreciative nod and tossing a few crumpled bills on the table.

His knuckles are white on the steering wheel the whole drive there and he wonders for the countless time that week if he’s going to vomit.

When he does get there, Steve’s car is already parked in the driveway. Billy inhales sharply and then exhales, letting his forehead rest on the steering wheel for a moment before he steels his nerves again and gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him and running an unsteady hand through his hair. 

Steve must have heard his car, because Billy barely taps the door before it swings open and Steve is there.

He watches Steve look at him, sees him freeze and take in the bruises and the cuts and the blood because even though Steve knows about his dad, even though Billy’s come to Steve bruised and bloodied before, it’s never been like this.

Billy knows that when Steve meets his gaze he sees all of the brokenness, all of the fucking pain that Billy has spent his whole life learning how to hide. Letting Steve see it is like letting Steve see some festering, pus-filled wound and Billy has never been more scared in his life. Not even with his dad.

But he’s just too damn tired of hiding it now. Too damn tired of pushing everyone away, of pushing _Steve_ away, because Steve is the only thing that matters, the only thing that’s ever mattered and Billy will die before he walks away from Steve again.

Billy hears Steve’s breath catch in his throat, watches him cautiously reach out to him. Steve’s hand is warm and gentle against the curve of his face.

Billy doesn’t move.

Steve breathes out “oh, _Billy_ ” and then Billy’s squeezing his eyes shut and _shuddering_ into Steve’s touch and he knows he’s crying and he can’t remember the last time he cried in front of someone else like this but Steve’s looking at him like he loves him despite everything he is and everything he’s done and Billy can’t hold it together. 

Steve pulls Billy towards him, pulls him inside, and closes the front door with his foot.

They stand together like that for a long time; Billy clinging onto Steve in the foyer with his face buried in his neck.

Finally, Billy pulls away. He scuffs his boot on the carpet and keeps his head down, his face hot with shame and the first lesson he ever learned from his dad echoing in his head: _boys don’t cry_.

Steve is having none of this, however, so he tilts Billy’s head up and forces him to look at him.

Billy sees nothing in his eyes but warmth. 

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” Steve takes Billy’s hand in his own and leads him to his bathroom.

“Steve, I—” Billy’s voice cracks as he tries to find the right words.

“I know. It’s okay, Billy.”

Billy shakes his head.

“No, it’s not.” He answers quietly.

Steve presses a finger to Billy’s lips.

“It’s _okay_ , Billy.” He says firmly, again.

Billy thinks to himself that he doesn’t deserve this kind of love.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Steve cleans Billy’s cuts with a tenderness that makes his heart ache. 

When he finishes, Steve smooths his thumb over Billy’s bottom lip and gives him the saddest fucking look Billy’s ever seen. Billy fights the urge to swat his hand away and bolt, instead offering him a sheepish smile.

“Thanks.”

“I missed you.” Steve murmurs, tentatively, because he knows Billy hates “that sappy shit.”

Billy doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he grabs Steve by chin and kisses him fervently, desperately.

“I missed you too, asshole.” _I ached for you. Every fucking day,_ is what he wants to say but he’s still Billy Hargrove so he just leaves it at that.

Then Steve’s laughing, loud and genuine, and shaking his head and pulling Billy into the bedroom. He’s still chuckling as he ducks down and mouths at Billy’s pulse point.

Trailing kisses down Billy’s chest, Steve works his buttons open slowly. Only once Billy’s jacket and shirt fall to the ground and Steve’s face twists does Billy remember the bruise blossoming across his stomach. 

Steve sinks to his knees and ghosts his fingers across Billy’s abdomen, making him shiver.

“I wish,” Steve starts, his voice thick, “I wish everything were different.” And Billy knows he doesn’t just mean with Neil, but with him, with _them_ , wishing they didn’t have to constantly hide, didn’t have to constantly be afraid.

Billy tangles his fingers in Steve’s hair and doesn’t say anything because Steve knows he wishes it too.

They’re quiet for a minute, and then Steve presses a hot, open mouthed kiss to the skin above Billy’s waistband and unbuttons his jeans, pulling his boxers down with them. Billy groans and lets his head fall back against the wall when Steve takes him in his mouth because it’s been nine days since he felt those lips wrapped around his cock and he honestly thinks he could cum right there and then. He fights to gain control because as pretty as Steve looks with Billy’s cock down his throat it’s _nothing_ compared to how he looks with Billy’s cock inside him.

But Steve’s moaning and drooling around him and Billy can see his hard cock straining against the leg of his jeans, droplets of pre-cum leaking through the denim and Billy actually has to push Steve off him because it is so fucking hot he’s going to lose it if Steve doesn’t stop.

Steve looks up at him, confused, and Billy grabs him by the shoulders and all but throws him onto the bed. 

“Need you. _Now_ ” Billy growls, and points to Steve’s clothes. “Off.”

The older boy instantly obliges and Billy smirks because even after he fucked up, even though he’s the one who should be meekly following Steve’s orders, Steve is so fucking obedient in bed it drives him insane.

Then Billy’s in between his legs, nipping and sucking at Steve’s collarbone while his right hand blindly reaches for the bottle of lube on the nightstand. He licks a stripe down Steve’s stomach, holding Steve down while he squirts the lube on his fingers, knowing he’ll want to buck his hips the second he feels Billy’s finger inside of him.

He slips his first finger into Steve and, sure enough, Steve whines as he tries to arch his back. Billy just tuts at him while he works that first finger in. He works a second finger in, and then a third, biting Steve’s hips and thighs but leaving Steve’s aching member untouched. 

Billy is not a religious person but when he pushes into Steve he swears he sees heaven. Steve lets out a sigh like nothing Billy’s ever heard before and when Billy finally reaches down between them to stroke Steve he makes a face so euphoric the only thing he can think is _angel_.

And Steve’s looking at Billy like he always does, with such reverence, like Billy’s the most precious fucking thing he’s ever seen, that Billy has to drop his forehead to Steve’s and just _feel_ because he is feeling everything.

Because being with Steve makes Billy feel _everything_.  

Billy’s close and he can tell that Steve is too by the way he’s tugging on Billy’s hair and sighing into his mouth and Billy can’t help but whisper “so pretty. So fucking pretty.”

“ _Billy_ ” Steve groans and then he’s he’s cumming and seeing Steve writhe beneath him pushes Billy over the edge, and he cums so hard he can’t breathe, spilling into Steve before collapsing.

They don’t talk again until they’ve cleaned themselves up and changed the sheets. It’s only when they’re facing each other in the dark with just the moon splashing light on their faces that Billy finds the courage to speak.

“I’m sorry.” He can hear Steve start to protest but cuts him off. “Please, just let me say what I have to.”

Steve nods. “Okay.”

“I’m not good at this sappy shit, Harrington, you know that. But it was shitty when you were gone and I really thought I’d fucked it up for good and I couldn’t—I _can’t_ lose you. And I don’t know what’s going to happen when we graduate but if you wanted me come with you, wherever you’re going, I would.”

That’s the most honest Billy’s ever been with anyone and he can see Steve gaping at him and it would make him laugh if he weren’t so fucking nervous.

“ _Really?_ ” Steve sounds incredulous.

Billy rolls his eyes. “Yes, _really_. I love you, dipshit.”

And forget bleeding on his doorstep, or blowjobs, or even fucking. The look Steve gives Billy then is the best fucking thing he’s ever seen.

 


End file.
